]]>If HGTV and National Geographic co-produced a reality show, it might look like The Landings Bird Cam, the impossibly addictive live feeds of two ospreys that have taken up residence in a waterfront nest high above The Landings on Skidaway Island, an Audubon-certified sustainable community near Savannah, Georgia. Locals have named the birds “Mr. and Mrs. O” and are now waiting patiently for the April arrival of little Os, since three eggs were recently spotted in the nest.

Watch for yourself. Here’s the view from one camera:

And the view from another:

Sometimes called fish hawks or a sea hawks, ospreys are among the largest raptors in North America, with wingspans that can reach close to six feet. They eat almost exclusively fish and tend to nest as couples to raise their young, just as the pair has done on Skidaway.

Along with the remote-control cameras that provide the live feeds, two Twitter accounts (@SavannahNest and @LandSavEagleCam) and a Facebook page are documenting the Os’ comings and goings. The current birds are not the first to occupy the nest—a pair of great horned owls raised owlets there in 2015 and 2016. It’s taken a village to film the nest, including help from Skidaway Audubon, Ogeechee Audubon, the Cornell University Lab of Ornithology, and even the local fire department’s ladder truck. The result is a birder’s dream and a desk dweller’s daily escape.

]]>When the journalist Von Diaz was just a few years old, her family moved from Puerto Rico to Atlanta for her dad’s Army job. “I traded plantains, roast pork, and Malta for grits, fried chicken, and sweet tea,” she says. As she grew up in Georgia, Diaz picked up on the nuances of good Southern food, like the stark difference between microwaved instant grits and slow-simmered coarse-ground grits sprinkled with black pepper. Still, Puerto Rican food—and the memories of her mother and grandmother cooking with fresh lime juice, beans, and plantains—remained a lifeline back to the island and her earliest memories. That dialog between past and present is at the core of Diaz’s new cookbook, Coconuts and Collards: Recipes and Stories from Puerto Rico to the Deep South.

It’s too simple to call Diaz’s dishes fusion food. What emerges through these recipes is something greater than the sum of its two cooking cultures—the mainland South and the United States’ island South. “The goal was to interpret the flavors and dishes that I love from my childhood and adapt them to a style of cooking that looks more like how we cook on a day to day basis,” she says. Take her Coconut Braised Collards, which Diaz seasons with soy sauce and keeps verdant instead of cooked to death. Serve them alongside her Coconut Grits, which owe their creaminess to the magic of grains simmered in rich coconut milk. Save room for the Rum Cake that Diaz’s mother is known to bake for every party and family gathering. Diaz, like her mother and countless other Southerners, has the dessert’s ingredients on hand at all times—“in case there is an event, potluck, or any other cake emergency.”

]]>Five Ways Southern Breweries Are Making a Markhttp://gardenandgun.com/articles/five-ways-southern-breweries-making-mark
Thu, 15 Mar 2018 16:42:26 +0000http://gardenandgun.com/?p=73245After a slow start, the South shows up strong on the national craft-beer scene

]]>The South is no slouch when it comes to national food and drink contributions—fried chicken, country ham, cornbread, barbecue, and bourbon among them. But the region has had some catching up to do when staking a claim in the craft-beer boom. While the number of breweries nationwide has reached an all-time high, topping 5,500 for the first time, many Southern states lag in terms of breweries per capita, according to the Brewers Association, a nonprofit trade group. But that trend is rapidly reversing course. Many states have enacted craft-friendly legislation that removes some of the barriers to entry, such as restrictions on selling to-go beer directly from taprooms, and a new vanguard of Southern brewers are making themselves known in significant ways.

Stacey Van Berkel

The South is the fastest-growing region in craft.

Although the rate of sales by craft brewers has slowed somewhat nationally, sales in Southern states continue to heat up. Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia, in particular, continue to add new breweries at a fast clip and, according to the BA, are among the fastest-growing states in terms of gains in total beer production.

Many are tapping into the region’s agricultural heritage to produce beers that incorporate indigenous ingredients and showcase local flavors. Lazy Magnolia Brewery in Kiln, Mississippi, for example, uses whole roasted pecans in its Southern Pecan Nut Brown Ale, and Southern-grown sweet potatoes in its Sweet Potato Stout. And brewers at Blackberry Farm in Walland, Tennessee, use wild yeast harvested from honeysuckle blossoms growing on the property to ferment their Wild Classic Saison.

Margaret Houston

They bring a new energy to town.

Like greasy spoons and coffeeshops, Southern breweries function as community hubs. They also know how to throw a party. The State of Origin Craft Brew Festival in Morgantown, North Carolina, for example, organized by local brewery Fonta Flora, brings hundreds of people to the downtown square to sample beers made exclusively with homegrown ingredients. A strong craft-brewing scene also attracts visitors, as cities like Asheville, Tampa/St. Petersburg, Birmingham, Austin, and many others can attest.

They’re getting in the spirit.

The bourbon industry produces plenty of freshly used barrels, as only charred new American white oak barrels are allowed for aging the spirit. It’s a relationship many Southern brewers use to great advantage. High-ABV stouts and porters often benefit from time in a barrel—the first batch of Against the Grain’s Bo & Luke Imperial Stout was aged in Pappy Van Winkle barrels at the Louisville brewery, making the most of a Kentucky connection, and the bourbon-barrel aged version of Good People Brewing’s El Gordo improves on an already excellent beer. Southern brewers are further exploring the possibilities with bourbon barrel-aged IPAs, barleywines, red ales, and other styles.

They’re working together.

Collaboration and innovation are hallmarks of the craft-brewing industry, and the South is no exception. Asheville-based Hi-Wire Brewing recently released a mixed twelve-pack of collaboration beers made with Against the Grain, Blackberry Farm, and Trophy Brewing Company in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Farmhouse breweries Fonta Flora and Jester King, in Austin, explore regional terroir with a collaboration called Wanderflora. More than two years in the making, the beer includes fennel and nettle foraged from North Carolina and false pennyroyal collected in Texas, and is fermented entirely by wild yeast collected from the cool night air in Texas Hill Country. It’s essentially the South in a bottle, and we’re happy to drink to that.

]]>Muhammad Ali, Elizabeth Taylor, Frank Sinatra, and Bing Crosby all partied in the famed Crystal Ballroom at the circa-1927 Cavalier Hotel in Virginia Beach. Designated trains from Chicago and D.C. deposited glittering guests feet from the front door of the brick neoclassical tower perched on a grassy hill overlooking the Atlantic. Ten U.S. presidents soaked in the hotel’s claw-foot tubs outfitted with extra spigots to draw restorative salt water baths. A Prohibition-era speakeasy and casino reportedly operated out of the basement. Perhaps juiciest of all, Richard Nixon allegedly burnt the White House tapes’ missing eighteen-minutes in the fireplace of the hotel’s subterranean Hunt Room lounge. But by the early twenty-first century, the once-regal Cavalier was embroiled in a family feud and had deteriorated to the point that Stephen King’s Jack Torrance would have been right at home in its musty near-empty halls. Then in 2013, the folks at Gold Key PHR, a local hospitality and real estate management firm, purchased the aging grande dame.

Robert Benson Photography

“The first step was to appeal to have the Cavalier placed on National Register of Historic Places, so that it would never be torn down,” says Bruce Thompson, Gold Key’s CEO. With that accomplished, restoration on the terrazzo floors, portico columns, painted ceilings, and period ironwork began. What couldn’t be restored had to be recreated to match the period. No surprise, a two-year $40 million project ballooned to five years and $81 million.

Ashley Lester

Ashley Lester

The refurbished Cavalier officially opened to guests earlier this March, delivering on its tradition of retro glamour without sacrificing any twenty-first century comforts. The original 195 rooms have been reconfigured and enlarged to create sixty-two rooms and twenty-three suites. “Back in the day, even the finest guest rooms were only as big as a large walk-in closet might be today,” Thompson says. There’s also brand new spa, an on-site distillery and tasting room where the speakeasy once lived, and three restaurants—Becca, the Raleigh Room, and the basement Hunt Room, with its notorious brick fireplace. “The Plunge,” the hotel’s indoor saltwater pool is back in opening-day condition. And beginning this summer, you can go for a dip in the just-installed oceanfront infinity pool at the new Beach Club located steps from the Atlantic—one thing that needed no upgrade.

]]>In Philadelphia this morning, the James Beard Foundationannounced the finalists for its ­annual food and beverage awards—often called the Oscars of the food world. Among the nominees are dozens of Southerners, many of whom you may recognize from the pages of G&G.

Book your reservations for these outstanding eating and drinking spots while you can, starting with Best New Restaurant nominee JuneBaby in Seattle, where chef Edouardo Jordan channels his St. Petersburg, Florida, roots. If you can’t get to Washington, you only have to wait until sweet corn season to try Jordan’s recipe for “corn bomb” pots de crème. Luckily, plenty more Southern nominees are much closer to home.

Two of the five heavy hitters in the running for Outstanding Chef hail from the South: Donald Link, the pride of New Orleans, and Ashley Christensen, who has done as much as anyone to revitalize Raleigh, North Carolina, starting with her Poole’s Diner. “The mac and cheese at Poole’s alone,” Allison Glock wrote, “caused an avalanche of desire and longing not seen since Raquel Welch wore that cave girl bikini,” and you can find the recipe here. Link’s buttery barbecue shrimp is a jaw-dropper, too.

D.C. is having an especially good year. Kevin Tien of Himitsu is a nominee for Rising Star Chef of the Year. And the Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic category—which covers D.C., Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia—is heavy with contenders from our nation’s capital, including Amy Brandwein from Centrolina, Tom Cunanan from Bad Saint, and Jeremiah Langhorne of the Dabney. (See Langhorne’s recipe for black walnut bay sauce, a long-fermented nineteenth-century condiment that shows his dedication to regional ingredients and history.) Cindy Wolf of Charleston is representing Baltimore, a city for which she recently gave us a dining guide.

Meanwhile, further below the Mason-Dixon line, the lineup for Best Chef: South is a toast to New Orleans—home to three nominees: Slade Rushing of Brennan’s, Kristen Essig and Michael Stoltzfus of Coquette, and Nina Compton of Compère Lapin. (“We don’t make gumbo,” Compton told us in a profile last year, explaining how, as a St. Lucia native, she’s found her footing in the Crescent City. “No way.”) Perennial nominees Vishwesh Bhatt, of Snackbar in Oxford, Mississippi, and Jose Enrique of Jose Enrique in San Juan, Puerto Rico, are also in the mix, alongside Brad Kilgore of Alter in Miami.

“It’s a humbling feeling,” Bhatt says, “and it makes me feel proud of my team. We’re in this little town in Mississippi, and we have extremely hardworking kids in the kitchen making me look good. It’s amazing to even be considered.”

Best Chef: Southeast is a contest between Mashama Bailey of the Grey in Savannah, who Allison Glock profiled in 2016, Katie Button of Nightbell in Asheville, Cassidee Dabney of Blackberry Farm in Tennessee, Andrew Ticer and Michael Hudman of Andrew Michael Italian Kitchen in Memphis, and the celebrated pit master Rodney Scott of Charleston, South Carolina’s Rodney Scott’s BBQ. So, it’s possible that barbecue will prevail over fine dining again; Texas brisket guru Aaron Franklin took home the award for Best Chef: Southwest in 2015. This would be whole hog’s first win. We’re rooting for all the nominees, but Rodney Scott’s BBQ Mixtape is on a repeat loop in the G&G offices today.

We always like to end with a drink, and the James Beard Foundation recommends Outstanding Bar Program nominees Anvil Bar & Refuge in Houston, Cure in New Orleans, and Kimball House in Decatur, Georgia. For a taste of the fun, you can try Kimball House’s Ramos Gin Fizz at home. NOLA’s Bacchanal and Charleston’s FIG earned nods for their Outstanding Wine Programs. And, finally, there’s one of our long-time favorites: Diane Flynt of Virginia’s Foggy Ridge, who announced the final call for her hard cider last fall.

The James Beard Foundation will reveal the winners at the Lyric Opera in Chicago on Monday, May 7. We wish them all the best of luck.

]]>“The Atlanta airport can be a mess,” says Gregory Harris, assistant curator for photography at the High Museum of Art. “You’re stuck in security lines, or your flight could be cancelled or delayed, or you’re about to miss your plane. But in the midst of all that, there’s a sense of possibility and hope, too.” Those calm instances are where Georgia photographer Mark Steinmetz finds his inspiration. In “Mark Steinmetz: Terminus,” the latest installment of the High Museum’s “Picturing the South” initiative, which commissions Southern photographers to create new bodies of work about their home region, the artist brings to light human moments that happen in the busiest airport in the world.

Based in Athens, Georgia, Steinmetz has been recognized for his street photography since the eighties. “He usually photographs the edges of cities and highways,” says Harris. “He’s interested in people who occupy liminal spaces, and there’s nowhere more transitory than Hartsfield-Jackson.”

Using only a small handheld camera, Steinmetz’s improvisational black-and-white photos focus on the paradoxes the airport poses: the literal movement from past to future, the simultaneous urban and rural setting the facility occupies on the outskirts of the one of South’s largest metropolises, and the contemplative moments that occur within the bustle of it all. In his shots, a man glances up at the sky, a boy watches the planes on the tarmac, and a woman turns a luggage cart into an impromptu lounge chair. “Hartsfield-Jackson is a gateway to the wider world,” says Harris. “And it makes for the setting of some incredibly human moments.”

]]>A strong sense of place is a feeling that unites all Southerners. For the artist Adam Trest, it’s also his life’s work. Inspired by his hometown of Laurel, Mississippi, and the charms of the region’s great cities, Trest is launching a new series of watercolor maps of what he deems some of the most essential Southern places.

He comes by his love for cartography naturally. After three and a half years at Mississippi State, Trest changed his major from architecture to art in order to follow the footsteps of Walter Anderson and the other great Mississippi artists who inspired him as a child. Around the same time, he took his niece to Disney World, where he happened upon an early concept map of Fantasyland, one of the Disney theme parks. “I loved it and couldn’t get it out of my mind,” Trest says. After years of painting watercolor portraits and teaching art to local schoolchildren, a friend asked him to illustrate a children’s book about the history of Laurel. “I wanted the cover pages to be a map of Laurel,” he says. “This was my chance.”

Brooke Davis

Encouraged by his first map, he then painted the Square in downtown Oxford, Mississippi. “But the Mississippi State people got upset I was painting the enemy,” he laughs. “So I did the Drill Field in Starkville, and then the entrance to the Lucas Administration Building at USM for good measure.” Having tackled three of Mississippi’s public universities, Trest realized he might be onto something.

Once he began printing his maps on pillows backed with coordinating patterns, the projects drew even more attention, leading him to open a home goods store in downtown Laurel in 2015. Although filled with many other collections, including children’s lines, bedding, and bags with his prints on them, the maps have remained one of his favorite ventures. This month, Trest launched his new Southern Cities Collection, opening the door for many more maps to come.

Brooke Davis

“I’m trying to paint the quintessential Southern towns,” Trest says. “I want people to say, ‘That’s where I got married’ or ‘That’s where I’ve gone on vacation since I was four.’” He began his new collection with New Orleans, a city he and his family have visited regularly since he was a child. “I needed an opportunity to do Jackson Square—the cathedral is like a castle and I could just see those carriages lined up in my mind,” Trest says.

To create a map, Trest visits the area and takes as many pictures as possible. “But of course, I inevitably miss something,” he says. “So, I use Google maps to fill in the gaps and double check myself.” After drafting each map out in pencil and then erasing it so the lines are barely visible, Trest paints layers of watercolor, adding definition with a pen or pencil. This technique allows room for his creativity to emerge. What may be a couple of ink lines on a more realistic map become flourishes of character on one of Trest’s pieces. His small towns have flagpoles and basketball goals, for example, and a larger-than-life sailboat sits anchored in the harbor of Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. “I want the feel of the place to come out,” he says.

Brooke Davis

Next up: Fairhope, Alabama, where Trest lived for a year after college on a bright red 1973 Pearson ten meter. In the next six months, he plans to paint Seaside, Florida, and then Athens, Georgia, or Auburn, Alabama, depending on where inspiration strikes. The to-do list keeps growing with destinations like Chapel Hill, Savannah, Charleston, and Mount Vernon only a few of the places Trest hopes to paint in the near future. “The goal is that when people see these, they won’t think of me as the artist,” he says. “The maps will begin to tell your story about that place. It’ll provide a vessel for your memories.”

]]>Often, trying out a fancy new cocktail requires dropping fifty or sixty dollars at the liquor store on vermouths, liqueurs, bitters, and other esoteric ingredients that are probably going to collect dust on the top shelf for the next ten years. Or maybe you shy away from restaurant-caliber drinks because you don’t need a ten-bottle amaro library in the den. Wouldn’t you rather buy your cocktail ingredients at the grocery store with your milk and eggs—in only the quantities you need, and without the expensive side trip?

That’s the premise of The One-Bottle Cocktail, from author Maggie Hoffman, who’s seen all sides of the cocktail revolution as a longtime correspondent for the likes of Serious Eats, Wine Enthusiast, and Punch. Her new book is a collection of more than eighty recipes, sourced from bartenders all over the country, for those everyday bottles of vodka, gin, tequila, mescal, rum, brandy, and whiskey already sitting on your home bar.

Just add wholesome ingredients like green tomatoes and basil, apricot jam and lemon juice, or carrots, oranges, and paprika, a sunset-colored trio that make a sweet-and-smoky mescal drink. You could mix up any one of them tonight, after a quick run to the supermarket. To start, try this cognac-based riff on the julep that owes its indulgent flavor to store-bought fig preserves and honey.

]]>On the Recordhttp://gardenandgun.com/articles/lee-friedlander-exhibit
Fri, 09 Mar 2018 21:53:16 +0000http://gardenandgun.com/?p=72988A new exhibit at the New Orleans Museum of Art shows some of the twentieth century's greatest musicians in unguarded moments

]]>Jazz has inspired many great visual artists like Jackson Pollock, Henry Matisse, and Romare Bearden. Now, a new exhibit at the New Orleans Museum of Art, explores the links between “America’s classical music” and the famed photographer, Lee Friedlander. Before he received three Guggenheim Fellowships, a MacArthur Genius Grant, and worldwide recognition as a master photographer known for his black-and-white street scenes, Friedlander began his career shooting album covers for Atlantic Records. Earlier this month, NOMA opened “Lee Friedlander: American Musicians,” the first half of a two-part retrospective on the now-83-year-old photographer, highlighting works that show who some of the twentieth century’s greatest musicians were “when they weren’t busy being who they were,” as a former Atlantic Records producer once put it.

photo: Lee Friedlander (Courtesy of the artist and Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco)

Johnny Cash, 1969

Raised on the West Coast, Friedlander’s love of music led him first to New York City, and then, beginning in 1957, to New Orleans, a city he has visited at least once every year since. He produced striking close-ups such jazz greats as John Coltrane, Champion Jack Dupree, and Miles Davis, as well as country, gospel, and soul legends like Johnny Cash, Ray Charles, and Aretha Franklin, captured in the midst of belting out a song. “These are raw images of individuals in unguarded moments,” says Brian Piper, NOMA’s Mellon curatorial fellow. “He was in the studio with them one-on-one, just listening to them create their music.”

photo: Lee Friedlander (Courtesy of the artist and Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco)

John Coltrane, 1960

photo: Lee Friedlander (Courtesy of the artist and Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco)

Aretha Franklin, 1968

photo: Lee Friedlander (Courtesy of the artist and Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco)

Tammy Wynette, 1971

Jazz inspired both the content of his photographs as well as the composition. “It’s the traditional idea of jazz being a call and response,” says Russell Lord, curator of photographs for NOMA. “These works are Friedlander’s visual response to the music itself. It’s all temporal—created in the moment.” The photos also foreshadow the techniques that earned him international recognition for his cityscapes later in his career. “It’s easy to see his composition strategy,” Lord says. “You see John Coltrane through a blurred microphone. Like he does so much later on in his career, he’s shooting through things to get to musicians.”

The second part of NOMA’s exposition on Friedlander opens April 27 and will be dedicated to his New Orleans street scenes.

]]>Though the Crescent City is known for its wide range of restaurants—from corner joints to white-linen old-world Creole palaces—New Orleans has a particular culinary attachment to the humble po’boy, the city’s variation on the long-sandwich tradition.

The near-universal origin story is that the sandwich was invented by sympathetic grocers during the 1929 streetcar strike to support and sustain strikers during the work stoppage (“We gotta feed them poor boys…”). Filled with crispy fried local seafood, slow-stewed roast beef, or cold cuts made magic on a griddle, a po’boy is a meal that’s appropriate any time your stomach starts to growl.

Below are several of the most popular po’boy variations. Be sure to order it “dressed” (with mayo, crispy lettuce, tomato slices, and dill pickles), and hunker down for one of New Orleans’ best lowbrow dining experiences.

Fried Seafood

A few miles down on the coast, oyster dredges and shrimp boats ply the Gulf of Mexico’s waters and bring New Orleans a flood tide of delicious, affordable seafood. If you’re a fan of crunchy fried shrimp or meaty, properly cooked oysters in sandwich form, these should be the mainstay of your walk-around-New Orleans diet.

French Fry

A double-carb nod to the sandwich’s origin story, this bare-bones version layers crispy potatoes on a puffy French loaf, then tops them with ladles of roast beef gravy (for savor) and the traditional condiments (mayo, shredded lettuce, sliced tomato, dill pickles).

Roast Beef

Savory, gravy drenched, and messy as hell, a properly made roast beef po’boy should be a bit of a challenge to eat. The gravy is the real star here, with chunks of slow-cooked roast adding beefy goodness. Pro tip: The success of a proper roast beef is measured in napkins. (The more you need, the better it is.)

Hot Sausage

New Orleans’ “hot sausage” is its own variation on the porky po’boy food group. Usually served patty-style and cooked up on a burger griddle, hot sausage has a pronounced cayenne kick and just enough grease to provide late-night belly ballast, should you need it in the wee hours. (No judgment here. We’ve all been there.) Add American cheese if that’s your thing.

Fried Catfish

Meaty freshwater fillets from our bewhiskered feline fish are more associated with nearby Mississippi, but that doesn’t mean the fry cooks of New Orleans can’t turn them into a solid lunchtime po’boy. Delicately flavored, substantially crunchy.

Hot Ham and Cheese

Yeah, yeah. Anybody can make a ham and cheese sandwich, right? But New Orleans cooks can turn standard deli items into something transcendent. Put thin-sliced pig on a flat-top grill until it starts to caramelize and the edges crisp up, add a couple of cheddar slices, and let them melt for a bit. On the fluffy po’boy loaf, they become something else altogether. Don’t sleep on this one.

Specialty of the House

Food cultures make progress when working cooks—well schooled in and respectful of local food traditions—get a little bored and possibly a little tipsy in the kitchen. (Don’t laugh. It happens.) They start experimenting with ingredients, flavors, and influences that push boundaries of form and culinary customs. This gets us Roasted Sweet Potato po’boys (at Killer Poboys), riffs on the Vietnamese bánh mi tradition, and countless po’boys named after groundbreaking locals who have admittedly “eclectic” tastes (the burger-based Judge Bosetta at Johnny’s Po-Boys comes to mind). Scan any menu for unfamiliar names and pay homage to these unsung pioneers of the New Orleans food scene.